AJAX World - Adobe Flex 4
Is Shaping Up By Yakov Fain  Adobe has published their
first plan of what should
be included in Flex 4
that is scheduled to
release next year. Since
Flex is an open source
product, you have a say
in this too. Obviously,
there's a hope that
upcoming Thermo release
will bring together
developer... May. 19, 2008 03:00 PM Reads: 5,765 Replies: 2 |
AJAX World - Cooking CRUD
with Flex and BlazeDS By Yakov Fain In today's cooking class
you'll add to your
cookbook a delicious
recipe. It's quick and
won't cost you a dime.
I'm sure you've been in
one of these situations
when you have unexpected
guests arriving in 20
minutes and need to make
a good impression. Let's
creat... May. 19, 2008 03:00 PM Reads: 4,691 |
AJAX World - Two Great
PDF Creators By Yakov Fain I like reading stuff in
pdf format. But it's
even better if you can
easily create pdf files.
By easily I mean a button
click. Literally.Since I
have Adobe Acrobat, my
Microsoft Word and
PowerPoint just have an
extra menu to create it.
But it's kinda boring.
Let m... May. 19, 2008 07:30 AM Reads: 2,911 Replies: 2 |
Flex 4: My Wish List By Yakov Fain Flex 2 was released in
the Summer of 2006 and it
was a mini-revolution in
the RIA space. Almost
nobody knew about Flex
1.5, but now almost
everyone has at least
heard about this
software. Flex 3 was
released in early 2008.
It has a number of useful
new features, b... May. 7, 2008 07:00 AM Reads: 2,517 |
Additions to My Computer
Book Shelf By Yakov Fain Many young programmers
don't read books anymore.
They google. They argue,
'When I need to find a
solution it's just a
click away. Why bother
purchasing books that are
outdated by the time of
printing? Real
programmers learn by
doing - trial and
errors'. I do not agree
with this. May. 2, 2008 10:15 AM Reads: 2,718 |
Forrester Turns Its Back
On AJAX By Yakov Fain I know, it's not nice and
I should behave as if
it's not that important
to me, but I can't.
During the last two and a
half years I've been
writing, openly speaking,
whistle-blowing, and
whispering that AJAX is a
wrong way to go for
developing rich Internet
applica... Apr. 28, 2008 11:30 AM Reads: 2,699 Replies: 1 |
Sara Jessica Parker
Should Upgrade To Leopard By Yakov Fain The real bummer is that
Java 6 is not there. Who
should we blame for it?
Steve Jobs who openly
states that nobody uses
Java anymore? There are
about 5 million
professional Java
developers around the
world. Can you give them
a good reason to buy
MacBook Pro? I can't. Apr. 19, 2008 09:45 PM Reads: 17,849 Replies: 5 |
Responding to the "Adobe
Flex Shortcomings" Java
Blog By Yakov Fain  Vectors supporting types
are the part of next
release - and are billed
more of
performance/coding help
then language
enhancement. Most of the
Java 5 constructs are not
really applicable to
ActionScript 3 - for fair
comparison you need to
use Java 7/8 with dynamic ... Apr. 10, 2008 09:15 AM Reads: 3,775 |
AJAXWorld and Bear
Stearns By Yakov Fain This was the first time
I've included into the
list of the RIA players a
little known product
called Curl. Even though
this language was created
in MIT, it's mainly used
in Japan. I had a chance
to spend an hour with
Curl folks today, and it
seems that this languag... Apr. 7, 2008 09:00 AM Reads: 5,196 |
New Major Release of Flex
Is Due This Summer By Yakov Fain This caught me by
surprise. Isn't it a bit
too soon? One of the most
interesting features of
this Flex release is
configurable modules.
This new release also
features lots of new
controls. I like the
grooved panels. The Web
site to promote the new
Flex is done in Flex too
(finally!). Apr. 1, 2008 07:00 AM Reads: 3,485 |
Do We Need to Teach
Designers Programming? By Yakov Fain  Fast-spreading rich
Internet applications
require new skills for
development of what was
known as boring-looking
enterprise applications.
In the past, development
of the user interface was
done by software
developers to the best of
their design abilities. A
couple... Mar. 30, 2008 08:30 AM Reads: 9,526 Replies: 5 |
The Next Big RIA Service:
Sprout By Yakov Fain These days RIA tools are
created mainly to two
groups of people: Web
Developers and UI
Designers. The second
group is represented by
creative people who can
design screens but are
not programmers. Big guys
are trying to come with
tools that would bring
together th... Mar. 17, 2008 02:15 PM Reads: 4,928 Replies: 2 |
When Will Sun
Microsystems Start
Competing in the RIA
Space? By Yakov Fain  Sun Microsystems is a
very respectful company,
with strong engineering
spirit and talented
software developers on
staff. Sun Microsystems
was the company behind
the very first technology
to support rich Internet
applications. Yes, I'm
talking about Java
applets th... Mar. 11, 2008 12:45 PM Reads: 6,306 Replies: 1 |
Notes from Adobe
conference for educators By Yakov Fain These are the notes from
Adobe Education Designer
and Developer Conference
that Adobe put together
for people who are
teaching Adobe software
at various universities
around the country. Mar. 5, 2008 01:00 AM Reads: 3,611 |
RIA Development Update:
Flex 3, Air 1.0 and
BlazeDS Released By Yakov Fain  Eighteen months ago Flex
2 was released, which
literally changed the way
people think of rich
Internet applications.
Since then lots of things
have happened in the Flex
community. In 2007 Adobe
announced that Flex will
go open source, and now
it has happened. All
... Feb. 25, 2008 10:00 AM Reads: 10,756 |
RIA - AJAX Developers
Always Openly State that
AJAX is Difficult By Yakov Fain  If you are starting a new
AJAX project, I highly
recommend that you watch
the video of a
presentation made by an
expert AJAX developer
Joseph Smarr from Plaxo.
Joseph is very
experienced AJAX
developer, and if after
watching this
presentation you don't
get goose... Feb. 22, 2008 07:00 PM Reads: 2,763 |
Watching Java
presentations with AJAX,
Flex, AIR and JavaFX By Yakov Fain Parleys.com is a great
Web site with lots of
recoded videos of
technical presentations
on a wide variety of
Java-related topics.
While the original
version of Parleys has
been created in AJAX,
more advanced Flex and
AIR versions are now
available too. I had a
c... Feb. 18, 2008 07:00 PM Reads: 6,150 |
Car Manufacturers Go with
Adobe Flex RIA By Yakov Fain OK, car manufactures go
Flex. Will they lose or
gain customers because of
that? Car manufacturers
want to have fancy
consumer sites. It's a
world of RIA, and having
interactive Web sites
should bring more people
to car dealerships. But
poorly performing Web
site ... Feb. 16, 2008 01:15 PM Reads: 4,809 Replies: 2 |
Flex Is All About
Event-Driven Development By Yakov Fain This is the first in a
series of articles that
will cover best practices
of Flex development using
the code of the
soon-to-be-released open
source class library
theriabook. These
components were developed
by Flex and Java
architects from Farata
Systems. Over the p... Feb. 14, 2008 02:45 AM Reads: 11,584 |
Rich Internet
Applications - State of
the Union By Yakov Fain We are entering an era of
Rich Internet
Applications (RIA), and
many enterprise
development managers are
facing the dilemma -
which way to go - remain
with tried and true Java
or .NET technologies or
less known (as yet) yet
AJAX, Flex, OpenLaszlo... Feb. 10, 2008 11:15 AM Reads: 36,960 Replies: 4 |
An Alternative To Flex
Builder Is Coming:
JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA By Yakov Fain One of the best Java IDEs
on the market may become
a valid Flex Builder
alternative later this
year. I can make a wild
guess that I'll be
seriously considering
switching to IntelliJIDEA
8.0 by the end of 2008
unless Adobe will make
some major investments in
Flex Builder. Feb. 7, 2008 08:30 AM Reads: 5,477 |
Flex Bugs Déjà Vu;
Memories of Java's Bug
Parade By Yakov Fain Flex is an open source
product, which means that
you can fix the bugs on
your own. This may fork
out the product, but
that's another story
altogether. On the other
hand, developers can vote
for the bugs so the Flex
team can fix them. I
remain cautiously
optimistic... Feb. 7, 2008 06:45 AM Reads: 4,247 |
AMF 3 Specification Is
Published By Yakov Fain Action Message Format
(AMF) is a protocol that
is used to serialize the
data coming into Flash
Player or going out to
other programming
environments that need to
communicate with Flash
Player. Say, if you
create in Java an
instance of the class
MyOrder, this insta... Feb. 4, 2008 11:30 AM Reads: 3,816 Replies: 1 |
Where To Find Senior Flex
Developers? By Yakov Fain The Adobe Flex enterprise
market picks up really
fast, and it's obvious
that the need for Flex
developers will only get
bigger and bigger. The
question is what kind of
Flex developers are in
huge demand. I'll share
with you the experience
of our company, but
firs... Feb. 4, 2008 11:30 AM Reads: 5,145 |
Flex 3, AIR, BlazeDS:
Less Than One Moon By Yakov Fain Unless your Flex 2
project has to go to
production this month,
switch to Flex 3. Now.
Flex 3 final Beta days
are almost over and it
brings you lots of
goodies. If you are still
thinking of using AJAX or
JSF for your data
intensive business
application, just stop
... Feb. 1, 2008 02:45 PM Reads: 6,968 |
Does Adobe's Promotion of
Flex Put Flash
Programmers at a
Disadvantage? By Yakov Fain I ran into an interesting
blog written by a Flash
programmer who feels that
Adobe's promotion of Flex
puts him and other Flash
programmers at a
disadvantage. And he
knows how to resist! Jan. 31, 2008 04:00 PM Reads: 6,690 |
AJAX Reporting Challenges
& Solutions with Adobe
Flex By Yakov Fain  Creating reporting
applications in AJAX is
often more challenging
than developing data
entry CRUD applications.
Reporters usually need to
process lots of data,
preferably on the client
side to minimize the
amount of information
that goes through the
wire. Reporter... Jan. 15, 2008 07:30 AM Reads: 10,170 |
How to Staff Your Adobe
Flex RIA Project Team By Yakov Fain  The main concern of any
project manager is if
there are enough people
in the pool of Flex
developers to staff the
project. Yes, there is a
pool of Flex developers,
but let's look at the
creature called 'Flex
Developer' under the
microscope. If you are
considering ... Jan. 15, 2008 07:15 AM Reads: 10,520 |
JavaFX Is A Too Late
Response from Sun for
Rich Internet
Applications By Yakov Fain  JavaFX is a
little-too-late response
from Sun to the rapidly
growing community of the
languages, tools and
techniques for
development of the Rich
Internet Applications.
Fine, let's give JavaFX
some time, it's still too
young. But what can you
expect from a scripti... Jan. 10, 2008 05:45 PM Reads: 7,637 Replies: 1 |
Can You Use Flex
Communication Protocols
for Mission-Critical
Trading Applications? By Yakov Fain  Redmond Developer News
has published an
interview with Dr. James
Gosling, creator of the
Java language, where
among other things, he
talks about JavaFX and
competing technologies.
And he made a comment I
can't agree with. Here it
is: 'If you look at
something like... Jan. 9, 2008 10:00 AM Reads: 14,617 Replies: 4 |
Time Magazine's 50 Best
Web Sites (Time Uses
Flex?) By Yakov Fain Time Magazine has
published their version
of the 50 best Web sites
of 2007. Check it out.
You may or may not agree
with their ranking, but
I'm sure you'll find some
interesting sites there
that you did not know
about. It's good to see
that Time has started
using Adobe Flex too. Jan. 3, 2008 07:00 AM Reads: 9,543 Replies: 2 |
Do We Need Third-Party
Flex Frameworks? By Yakov Fain This started as a Skype
chat room conversation
between my colleague
Anatole Tartakovsky and
myself, and I thought
that it would be a good
idea to invite more Flex
developers to join this
discussion. Having said
this, I'd like to make it
clear that over my
career, ... Dec. 27, 2007 09:45 AM Reads: 11,955 Replies: 1 |
How Do You Deploy Patches
in Your Rich Internet
Application? By Yakov Fain  In Java world, the
solution to this issue is
pretty simple. A typical
Java application consists
of a number of .jar files
(think libraries or swc)
and there is a concept of
a class path. If a
program needs to use a
class MyGreatCreation,
the Java class loader
trie... Dec. 25, 2007 01:30 PM Reads: 14,205 |
Mouse Wheel Support in
Flex By Yakov Fain Just two of the text
fields on your Flex
window have to support
the mouse wheel. The
user turns the wheel, the
numeric field in these
fields is incremented or
decremented. Let's do it. Dec. 21, 2007 11:00 AM Reads: 7,686 |
Who's on the Market of
Fast Communication
Protocols for Flex? By Yakov Fain There are different ways
of connecting Web clients
written in Flex with the
server-side applications
being that Java, PHP,
Ruby on Rails, ASP or
anything else that can
generate HTTP responses.
Up till today, the least
expensive way was by
using Flex objects
HTTPS... Dec. 13, 2007 01:30 PM Reads: 11,728 |
BlazeDS: A Breaking News
for the Adobe Flex
Community! By Yakov Fain  In my opinion this is THE
biggest announcement that
I?ve heard from Adobe
since the release Flex 2
in the Summer of 2006.
This is bigger than open
sourcing Flex. This is
bigger than AIR. Here's
the news: Adobe is open
sourcing AMF protocol and
messaging under LGPL V... Dec. 13, 2007 10:00 AM Reads: 15,599 Replies: 1 |
A Dozen Predictions for
2008 By Yakov Fain  The year 2007 was a good
one. The IT job market
was stable. Mankind got
an iPhone. While there
were not any
revolutionary changes in
the way software was
developed, I believe that
this was a year of rich
Internet applications and
Web 2.0. YouTube became a
part of ... Dec. 10, 2007 02:30 AM Reads: 15,148 Replies: 4 |
What Is Adobe Certified
Flex Training By Yakov Fain Based on the calls I'm
getting, it seems that
people are confused by
the word certified in the
name of this program. So
I'll try to provide some
clarification here. But
let me start by
explaining what the title
Adobe Certified Flex
Instructor means. I'll
start with my own story. Nov. 16, 2007 09:00 AM Reads: 10,413 |
Android: Who Hates Google
Over the Phone? By Yakov Fain After Google's Android
announcement, at least
four big guys should be
irritated: Sun
Microsystems, Apple,
Adobe and
Microsoft.Google
approaches telephony from
the open source side -
Linux-based platform,
uses Java but does not
care about sticking to
Java ME - th... Nov. 16, 2007 02:45 AM Reads: 20,309 |
Debugging Both Flex and
Tomcat Java Programs in
Eclipse By Yakov Fain If you use Adobe Flex Web
applications that connect
to Plain Old Java Objects
on the server side,
chances are you use a
popular, robust, and
freely available server
called Apache Tomcat. If
you use Eclipse-based
Flex Builder, you can
smoothly debug both Flex
and J... Nov. 14, 2007 08:15 AM Reads: 17,619 Replies: 1 |
About Newsfeeds / Video Feeds
Yakov Fain is a managing principal of Farata Systems, consulting, training and product company. He has authored several Java books, dozens of technical articles. SYS-CON Books released his latest co-authored book , "Rich Internet Applications with Adobe Flex and Java: Secrets of the Masters" in Spring 2007. Sun Microsystems has nominated and awarded Yakov with the title Java Champion. He leads the Princeton Java Users Group. Yakov teaches Java and Flex 2 part time at New York University. He is an Adobe Certified Flex Instructor and an Editor-in-Chief of Flex Developers Journal.